When working in a medium sized office setting, you tend to share links with your co-workers, and then forget to show your other friends. This is a demonstration of what a recent study claims we spend 25% of our office time doing (while maintaining or even increasing productivity). Our managers, on the other hand, would call them "distractions".

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

While I don't believe in banning books EVER, I sometimes understand the motivation behind the desire to do so. But not this time. This one is just plain dumb.

A woman in Minnesota has requested that the comic book, Bone, be removed from the shelves of her son's school library. Now, I have read Bone (thanks again to Ticknart for that!), and there is nothing remotely offensive in that book. In fact, I think there's more offensive and sexually-laden material in an Archie comic. Bone is just a great read for all ages.

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that's your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Thursday, April 22, 2010

I'll be the first to admit that I am WAY behind on news. I have a pretty strict policy of not following news because of how it affects me. So I apologize if this is old news to you, because I just learned about it.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Wonder, connected with a principle of rational curiosity, is the source of all knowledge and discovery, and it is a principle even of piety; but wonder which ends in wonder, and is satisfied with wonder, is the quality of an idiot.-Samuel Horsley

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

The disk spins, rotating around its center like a DVD (though stuff toward the center goes around faster than stuff near the outer edge). The middle of the disk is where the star forms. Farther out, local eddies and vortices can form planets. But the important thing to note is that in this scenario, everything spins in the same way. If the disk appears to be spinning clockwise, say, then the star will spin that same way, the planets will orbit that same way, and the planets will spin that same way. We’re pretty sure this is how things work because that’s pretty much what’s happening in our own solar system.

This theory has been tested by observation and by increasingly complex modeling. Sometimes there are problems with it, but in general new ideas have been added that fix those problems, and over time we’ve been pretty happy overall with the idea that stars and planets form this way.

However, a bunch of newly discovered planets have messed this nice idea up. They orbit their stars the wrong way!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Monday, April 5, 2010

If any of you play it, I'm sorry, but I think you might be a sucker. I am, however, distracted by stories about people who play Farmville. Especially when it gets you kicked off your seat on the city council.

The troubled councilor, Dimitar Kerin, has defended himself by saying he was not the only one in the City Hall watering virtual egg plants. He said he had reached only Level 40, whereas Daniela Zhelyazkova, a councilor from the rightist Democrats for Strong Bulgaria party, was already at Level 46.